


Sehnsucht

by How_To_Be_A_Fangirl_101



Series: Lessons [4]
Category: Little Nightmares (Video Game)
Genre: Author is a trash panda and proud of it, Cheerfully whistling while I scribble out canonicity and substitute my own, F/M, Fix-It, Fix-It of Sorts, How do I tag?, Look it Up, Minor Canonical Character(s), No beta we die like the Janitor, Six and Mono reunite as the Lady and the Thin Man, The Lady is an Anomalocaris, The Maw, The Pale City, Time loops make everything weird, and post-canon, creepily awesome, hunger and eyes is all I have to say, nomes - Freeform, off-screen and screaming, since everyone lives again by the next ring-around, takes place during canon, technically major character death but not really
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-11
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-17 09:00:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29963997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/How_To_Be_A_Fangirl_101/pseuds/How_To_Be_A_Fangirl_101
Summary: She hopes that one day she will look down and see a tall figure in the myriad of guests.He reaches out from nigh-infinite screens and hopes to one day catch a familiar hand.In their own ways, Six and Mono regret.
Relationships: Mono & Six (Little Nightmares), Mono/Six (Little Nightmares), The Lady & The Thin Man (Little Nightmares), The Lady/The Thin Man (Little Nightmares)
Series: Lessons [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2187654
Comments: 14
Kudos: 69





	1. Vice or Wish

**Author's Note:**

> Credits:  
> Chapter 1 title from White Wedding by Billy Idol.  
> Chapter 2 title from Music For Sad People by Zalinki.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not sure where this is going yet; I've been trying to plot out where I want to go, but it's all just a mess. This first part, I'm pretty sure about, so I thought I'd get it out there. Is it a fix-it? No idea, but it might turn into one. But for now, have a helping of sads.
> 
> For this one, I leaned into the theory that Six is the Lady and Mono is the Thin Man. Still haven’t decided if I support the theory, but it’s nice for writing purposes. Fountains of angst for the taking.
> 
> For my writing, this is about as gentle as it gets. No action, no dialogue, just introspection.

If the Lady is one thing, it is composed. She cannot afford not to be.

Long ago, she gave into her whims with a childishly gleeful abandon, going about her way with casual disregard, and it had cost her the only thing she could live without. Yes, could. The core of her is made of instincts bent on eking out her share. There had been only one thing she allowed herself that was a luxury, and she crushed it under her heel just the same. A child who destroys its own beloved toys, does it do it just because it can? Back then, she had her reasons, the reasons she clung to in order to assuage the guilt that threatened to assimilate her. _I was hungry_. _I knew what the future was_. No, she saw her own apathy and wanted to burn it out - a child scared of its own childishness. 

Now, the low-simmering guilt and the familiar apathy are old acquaintances. She allows herself more luxuries now - smooth robes, long soft hair, comfortable sheets, possessions, privacy. Maybe if she has enough luxuries, she won't be tempted to destroy them like she had before. Maybe she is just giving herself her dues, her _share_. As ever, the Lady often prefers to turn her face from what she deems ugly, even the ugliness in herself - _especially the ugliness in herself_. 

Mirrors are an odd weakness - even she can acknowledge that. But she had heard somewhere that, before, television sought to mirror or to amplify what is already there. Besides, looking at a darkened screen is much the same as looking in a mirror. You see what you want and what you don't want to see. ~~She cannot decide if a sharp silhouette is something she wants to see or not~~. She knows that her self is definitely not wanted. 

She always wears a mask. She wears it when alone. She wears it even when she takes it off. There are many masks one can wear, ~~like headpieces that can be worn and shucked at whim~~. She learns restraint; she learns how to stop her desires from controlling her actions. It is like a dance - _how much can I give in without surrendering, how much can I take without being overrun_? She choreographs her movements, keeping pace to the tempo that her heart beats to. Ritual is comforting, it is a leash she voluntarily yokes herself to. There are so many measures she takes to cage herself, and she takes an almost perverse pleasure in constraints. 

In hindsight, opening a restaurant is not surprising. At the time, it had bewildered her, but she had obeyed the whim easily enough. Naming it 'The Maw' was a wry self-recrimination, an inside joke with herself. It was easy to settle into the role of a restaurant owner; she made sure that her guest's hunger is fed, ~~so that it can't make the guest's betray their loved ones like it did her~~. Eventually, she sees it is just another dance, another chain. _How well can she fare when a feast is paraded in front of her nose? Can she resist the urge?_ She finds that her control isn't even threatened. Of course, she still eats, but in moderate amounts - never gorging, but never starving either. The benefit, and the price, of hiding is that there is barely anything to tempt her; there is little that she can find, and even less that can find her. Solitude is a precious barrier that she only forsakes for 

The people who flock to her establishment are curious. They are hungry in their own ways - some want to serve, some want to hide, some want to glut, some want to provide. There are those who want to place their hungers under her purview, so she lets them, lets them become permanent residents of her domain. The Cooks are practically attached at the hip, ~~like they had been~~ , so she allots them quarters big enough to be shared and amenities geared towards two. The Janitor has a kinder heart than the majority of those who set foot on her shores, so she lets him have his stuffed animals and his suitcases and his single, lonely television far, far away in the depths where she cannot come across it by accident. When he comes by to give his reports, she never looks at his long, thin arms ~~or his hands~~ ; she knows he doesn't notice, because his eyesight had fled long ago. As always, she avoids what she cannot bear to face. 

Her abilities were sudden, clawing out of her in desperation; she had mistaken them for her emotions at first, then her hunger. But they writhed around her like macabre, deadly wreaths - nighttime wraiths with countless teeth. When she feeds them, they pull at her like wide-eyed dogs, nipping at her hemline, eagerly wanting her attention. When she lets them pull her along, she ends up shadowwalking. The first time it happened, she was unwittingly drawn back in an unspooling of her memories, to white noise and blurs and ominous calm and brown eyes and brown eyes _again but wrong_. The shadows dragged her back, and she had hunched over on herself while trying to remember how to want to be serene. The shadows had cavorted around her, exuberant and mildly concerned. This is the first of many times where she wonders what the shadows are and from what were they cast. Whatever they are, they seem to get a sick delight from taking the shape of children. They aren't aware enough to be malicious, but have enough mind to drape on her shoulders when she brushes her hair and to chase intruders personally. Not quite dogs, not quite children, not quite entities, not quite shadows even; she never knows what to make of them or if they are even hers. 

Are the shadows souls? Are they hungers? Memories? Imprints? All she knows is that when she found a child who had stowed away, she had furiously snatched it with the shadows. It had cried; it was very small, too small, clutching at a bundle of rags she supposed was an emulation of a doll by someone too inept to fully replicate. Her only explanation of what had happened next was that she squeezed too hard. The child had screamed out, too hoarse to be very loud, for no one to hear. One second, it was thrashing around, the next, its form was melting and reshaping. Where a child had been, she was left holding an unrecognizable creature. In her shock, she let it go and numbly watched it scurry away. There was something about it that she knew, something about the peaked head, ~~something left over from her emotions that made her gasp and shudder - a _child_~~. Nevertheless, she had done something, or the shadows had done something, and she knew how to do it again. And she did. She just didn't know what it was that she did. Did she take away its hunger, its soul, or just change its shape like mud clenched in a fist. Whether out of revulsion or regret, she lets the creatures free as long as they evade her gaze; her kindness only extends as far as her ignorance. She is very accomplished at ignoring what she does not want to know. 

So, it is of almost no surprise to her that she had forgotten what she looked like as a child and the exact sequence of events that led to her. She had outgrown the raincoat ages ago, and had easily shunted it off the side of the Maw one day. The girl was all elbows and knees, all sharp edges and eyes - so single-minded, so prey to her hunger. From the naturally occurring shadows, she watches the girl's progress out of sight. The girl is so unaware of anything but her hunger, unaware of what ~~and who~~ will be in her future. 

She knew this day would come. She remembered that much. That was why she kept a single pristine mirror that she replaced every few years when it was broken or fogged, carried inside with wary pomp by one of her workers. It is a prop for her final dance. She glides on the edges of the spotlight, already weary. She knows enough of temporal oddities to know that this cannot be the first time she has gone through these motions, and she knows that she wants rest, to finally ease from the burden of constant vigil against her nature. But rest will not come. As soon as she gets it, the cycle starts anew. 

The Lady shrieks as her reflection is weaponized, staggering away and catching herself. Again. And again. And again, until the image in the mirror is not of her, but rather a familiar form with brown eyes and another familiar form with brown eyes _again_. The welling of emotion is what knocks her to the ground. The mirror is broken, from mishandling ~~or from the strain of channeling _him_ through what shouldn't be able to~~. Panting, she waits for her own teeth to close around her neck.

She could move and fight, but there is no point when her future is already written.

Besides, after she dies, she can look into brown eyes again without flinching from the weight of her own sins. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright! Definition time for anyone who's nerdy enough to enjoy this stuff (like me).
> 
> 1\. According to H. Porter Abbott, shadow stories exist in a narrative progression only as possible, not actual, event sequences. According to Karin Kukkonen, negative plotting is a narrational approach that involves plots ‘shadowing’ one another and becoming meaningful in their mutual contrast. Though neither Lessons nor Shadow Stories do not really have shadow stories in the literal sense, the ideas of contrast and possibility, however, are very much included.
> 
> 2\. Sehnsucht - “longing”, “desire”, “yearning”, or “craving”; some psychologists use it to represent thoughts and feelings about all facets of life that are unfinished or imperfect, paired with a yearning for ideal alternative experiences.
> 
> I'm sure you're all smart enough cookies that you'll figure out why I've included these, if you haven't already.


	2. Nothing like a good bad mood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Definition time!   
> Effigy - 1) a sculpture or model of a person. 2) a rough model of a particular person made to be damaged or destroyed as a protest or expression of anger.   
> Tribute - 1) an act, statement, or gift that is intended to show gratitude, respect, or admiration. 2) something resulting from something else and indicating its worth. 3) denoting or relating to a group or musician that performs the music of a more famous one and typically imitates them in appearance and style of performance. 4) payment made periodically by one state or ruler to another, especially as a sign of dependence.

In the end, the Thin Man never stops reaching out to her. He hadn’t stopped when she first refused him, he hadn’t when she dropped him, and he won’t stop now that she won’t even acknowledge his offers. He knows she hears him, because she would have to be dead not to; she just doesn’t answer.

With his new influence, he hijacks cell towers and radio stations and sends a message out. The message changes from day to day; sometimes he forgives her and sometimes he swears that his anger will blacken the skies for years to come. Alongside songs, he croons the words he wants her to hear. On television shows, he appears as an actor. He’s lost his own words – he can only borrow the words of others. When she left, she took with her his breath, because it had been shocked from him, and his determination.

He is as grey as he feels, and he makes the Pale City reflect his mood. His heart, of what’s left of it, beats a rhythm that is her true name, the one she’d whispered one night before angrily insisting it didn’t matter and that Six was just as real a name, even realer because it was the one she chose. He doesn’t feel sad – he knows this, because he’s felt sad before. The emotion he feels now can’t be cached in such a simple term. It lightens and darkens at an unknown pattern, one day as dear to him as the memory of her, then one day as reviled to him as the worst of villains. Mostly, when not caught between the riptides of its extremes, he feels like the calm before devastation, except the devastation already ravages him, but he doesn’t want it to. He’s entirely too gloomy, he knows, but it’s so easy to sink into the murk when she’s the one who tossed him into it.

There’s a certain kind of vindication in sadness, a kind of enjoyment in justification, a _what was done to me I have made mine_. He claimed it, claimed it as a part of himself; it was the only piece of himself big enough to build a foundation on. Not a particularly healthy mindset, but hurt people rarely feel up to wellness. This kind of sadness is one that is so easy to revel in; you can turn it into rage in a heartbeat, you can make it seem like pride or resentment, it can be concealed from everyone – even from yourself.

Not that he does much actual hiding. Even before, he had never seen much use for stealth. His instincts always ran towards fight or flight, not cautionary measures. Besides, stealth can be easily broken by a sudden structural collapse or some other unforeseen event. Combat eliminates that risk factor, and if the enemy is too strong, you run. Of course, what do you do when the enemy is something you can’t fight with hammers? He hasn’t found the answer yet, besides fester in anger and end up a rotten stew.

In the first few years, he’d withdrawn almost completely from the physical sphere. He could feel himself spiraling into an unmaking, or maybe a remaking, and so hid away. He’d never completely suppressed his urge to hide, to not be seen even while being seen. Maybe that’s why he always fought instead, because the instinct to run away was too strong to give into. But he’s done with masks and paper bags; what he allows, is hats. Especially hats that shade his face, even though those painfully remind him of a hood pulled over bangs sometimes. But there is no alternative; he can’t face bright light. He can’t stand being exposed and vulnerable, and there is nothing more vulnerable than the baring of oneself, whether emotional or physical. Vulnerability means injury, ~~and he’s still bleeding out years later, no matter how much he angrily seeks to cauterize the wound, to burn her influence out of him like willingly accepted venom~~.

She ruined him, he knows, in more than one way. He avoids yellow and hates purple with a foreign passion. He can no longer walk outside the tower, because exploring has no allure if she is not there to hold his hand. He cannot go to the school, because the one time he heard the Teacher play, he’d been struck soundless by the bitter memory of a simple tune and a music box. There are other pianos and instruments of music strewn throughout the city, and he has to restrain himself from destroying them all.

More than that, he can’t help but feel like he is an effigy that she built up only to burn and leave behind. She had always been fiery, blazing with temper and resolve. She’d always burned him, but back then he’d loved the pain because it meant he was warm. Now, he’s left cold in the ashes, seared and immolated. ~~Like the Doctor, except he’s still alive albeit grudgingly, but the same in that she doesn’t feel guilty for either of them~~.

But he makes effigies as well. The small glitches he leaves behind whenever he takes a child, like he had taken her. Perhaps they are more tributes than effigies, because these shadows were never made to be destroyed. The children themselves, some are sent directly to her, deposited in the depths of her ship ~~like flowers left at a lover’s door, like the bloody gifts left by a cat~~. The glitched children are imitations of her shadows, the ones he knows she has but never saw. He’d known who she would become in time, knew as soon as he reflected on the stories of feasts and mirrors; she and he mirror each other, even in this, even now.

He never wonders if she mirrors him in suffering now, he can’t afford to. ~~He knows that if he stops to think of her pain that his will drain away, and he needs it, he needs it to keep himself from freezing solid~~. Besides, she never was one to sit and reflect. She never felt guilt for killing her enemies, so why should she feel guilt for him? After all, he _is_ her enemy, there is nothing that will change that. He wants to kill her, to drown her in icy water until she turns blue and grey. He wants to hear her huffs of exasperation again, like when he’d done something particularly stupid like windmilling because he always walked too close to edges and needed her to pull him back. He wants to push her off the edge of a ravine, off a bridge, off a building while he makes her understand he could have chosen to let her keep her balance. He wants to fall asleep warmed by her warmth instead of being chilled and scalded by it in equal measure.

With all these conflicting wants, it is no surprise that he never stopped reaching out. He wants to be surprised, but even he can’t deny that the strength of his emotion outweighs anything he might do with it. At his most candid moments with himself, even he admits that he only really wants her, and that what he wants to do with her is secondary. He can always decide the issue later, after he tires of waiting with his palms open _like a beggar, that’s all he’s ever been, a sinner begging at her feet, wanting absolution from the damned_ and instead grabs what he wants with both hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They’ve flipped roles here, folks! She's the dog and he's the cat (the Lady is still an Anomalocaris, though, not budging on that). Just goes to show that you’re not you when you’re hungry. Or in pain from being betrayed by the one person you let yourself be close to and you're still insanely bitter about it. Ha ha. Seriously though, none of this is healthy. Mono/The Thin Man self-contradicts like crazy, and flips moods as quickly as he teleports. And you see how I'm using words like insane and crazy to describe him, yeah? Yeah. He ain't doing too hot. 
> 
> Also, I've never experienced something like fluctuating moods like as in bipolar depression, so I hope it came across as believable. Though I'm not expressly saying that he's bipolar, but he definitely does resemble it, or at least resembles the stereotypes surrounding it. No offense meant to anyone who might be diagnosed with bipolar disorder; hopefully, I treated the topic with all due respect and gravitas it deserves. 
> 
> Mental health is important, guys! If you're feeling blue, or out-of-control, or even just a little down, find someone to talk to. I know it sucks, but you'll be so grateful later. It doesn't even need to be a therapist. Even walking up to a friend or parent and just asking them to hug you for a few minutes helps. Of course, maybe don't do this during a pandemic unless you're sure that neither of you have or are carriers of Covid. I usually go the self-comfort route with a fluffy blanket, a cup of hot chocolate (no matter the weather, because the worst hot cocoa is still better than the worst coffee or tea) and a loved one to watch a movie with. Best part is, you can do that over Zoom! And no one ever says no to watching something, unless they're astronomically busy or just a giant douche. Bottom line, please take the time to take care of yourself, even if it feels like you don't want to or don't deserve it; I promise you, you do. Alright, ramble-y PSA finished, as you were, folks.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to everyone who reads this! It's always been my opinion that writing is something both for myself and for others. Yes, I write because I love to write and because I love the subject matter, but I also write because of the people who read it, and because I want to share with you an experience, an idea, an emotion - whatever it is that is expressed when you interpret what I've given you. 
> 
> As an extremely obscure reference to Stephen King that I'm not entirely sure I remember correctly, when we both think about checkered tablecloths, my checkered tablecloths don't look like your checkered tablecloths, but that's okay, because I'm making you think of checkered tablecloths in the first place. So, there are probably things about Lessons and Shadow Stories that I think of, and other people don't - little details that I think are significant and meaningful that no one else does. And that's okay, great in fact, because I don't want to make you think the same way I think, and I'm sure you don't want me to think entirely like you. Interpretation is a wonderful thing, friend. I can hope you all reach the same conclusions about the characters that I do, but I don't expect it, nor do I think I really want it. Everyone has something unique they see when they read a text, even if you feel like you share your opinions with millions of people - you have different experiences and different thoughts, which translates to different results. 
> 
> I may try to persuade you otherwise, with all my over-explaining and self-contradiction, but do not take my word as absolute truth when it comes to these characters; my interpretations are not more important simply because I wrote the words - yours are important as well, since you are part of the reason why I write. This might sound a little too forward, but I think there is nothing more platonically intimate than a reader reading the writings of a writer. You are all seeing parts of my soul, and, in some small way, making me part of yours. That's why I like to thank you and respond to your comments - reciprocity, exchange for exchange. 
> 
> Also, just in case nobody gets the wrong idea, I swear I don't mean any of this romantically. Blergh, relationships. No. Aaaand there's the awkwardness. I have two modes - overly serious and utter goof - and it's a coin toss because I'm too indecisive to stick to one for any stretch of time. And both modes are too awkward to talk normally. Which is why I turn to written word instead of verbal! Because I can censor myself. Told ya, goof and gravitas and social anxiety. I was doing alright at first, then devolved into overthinking and panicked explanations and quick assurances. And rambling. 
> 
> And when I realize I'm rambling, then it's time I stop. This is one time where I won't censor myself, because the idea of the writer-reader exchange is too important not to say, but I also don't want to scare anyone off because they might think I'm feeling something that I don't. So, with that, I'll leave it up to you to decide what you make of all my blathering. 
> 
> And thanks again. You took the time to read my works, and maybe even my notes as well, if you're particularly voracious. This means that you know quite a bit about me, so I also thank you for that. Okay, I'm done. Rambling over. Officially. For real. Full stop. Fin.


End file.
